Also Jason Tebbe's H-Memory review of Jeffrey Olick's book:
The Politics of Regret: On Collective Memory and
Historical Responsibility (New York Routledge, 2007), 229 pp.
It sounds like a critique of Halbwachs' static concept of Collective Memory that lays out a process-oriented alternative ("counter-concepts" laid out on p. 91). The periodization of postwar German 'memory' by the interpretations of May 8, 1945 strikes me as an odd one to choose, but I haven't read the book yet.

Sept. 26, 2008: This Oct. 2008 conference in Kiel, "Geschichtspolitik und kollektives Gedächtnis. Rückblick, Kritik, Perspektiven," announcement on HSK has a number of interesting presentations. It would be worthwhile to see what the presenters have published.

Aug. 1, 2007: I just discovered an interesting radio show (WNYC's Radiolab, June 8, 2007) on the physiology of memory: "Memory and Forgetting." The first 22 mins. before the break are the most relevant in a social-historical context.

Apr. 1, 2007: good links on History and the Internet:

Daniel Cohen and Roy Rosenzweig, Digital History: A Guide to Gathering, Preserving and Presenting the Past on the Web (Upenn, 2005), 314 pages. Full text on-line at CHNM.org

Hist 201E (Readings in European History): " This graduate reading seminar explores how scholars have attempted to conceptualize how historical events affect the social and political behaviors of individuals, groups, and societies. Scholars often conceive of this process as an interaction between "the past," or at least an objectively fixable "history" as recorded in sources and interpreted by professional historians, and a more subjective and malleable "memory" that accrues in the minds of individuals and is shared among groups.

The course is designed both for students with a dissertation field in European history, and for students with an emphasis in public history. It should not only provide solid grounding in aspects of public history in Europe, but also prepare students in a general way for my subsequent 2-quarter research seminar in public history (Hist 217BC).

Each week we will all read several articles, chapters, or a monograph as "core readings." Two students will work with the professor to produce a thesis paper on those readings. Additionally, pairs of students will read supplementary selections and present their results to the class.

December 29, 2006: site still under construction.
For those who saw my preliminary list of topics, the "theory"
has expanded somewhat (with more approaches and case studies), while
public history in the academy, and history and the internet have been
dropped.

Jan. 4, 2007: I think I'm going to leave the order
of weekly topics as they are now. I'm still deciding on the core readings
for some weeks. The lists of readings for each topic are in random order
for now; I'll put the core readings first by the time the quarter starts.
(My idea is that everyone will do the core readings, and we'll break
into pairs for the others.)
Note that the readings on jstor and project Muse require a UCSB login
(set up your browser as a proxy server--directions
on-line).

Jan. 7, 2007, 9pm e-mail excerpt: One
of you just asked on e-mail whether there are any readings for tomorrow.
While I didn't consider assigning any, I did put links to some on the
course website, which I plan to mention/present briefly during our first
discussion. (My idea was--and still is--that you can refer to them afterwards.)
However, if you have time and desire to peruse them beforehand, it couldn't
hurt.
The website is still more disorganized than I'd like it to be, since
I haven't finished selecting the core readings for all of the weeks,
nor even the books I recommend for purchase, which differ slightly depending
on your focus (German, public, US history, non-history fields). In fact,
I'd like to keep the topics of the final weeks open until I meet you
all and learn about your interests.
With that said, here is the link: [to this page]

Jan. 8, 2007, after class:

I've updated the reading list for next week, and added your initials
to the supplementary readings.

Daniel Schacter, author of one of our readings
during the "cognition" week, will be speaking this Friday,
Jan. 12 at UCSB:
Daniel Schacter, Professor of Psychology, Harvard University, "Memory
and the Mind: How We Construct True, False, and Imaginary Events,":
4-6pm, Life Sciences Building 1001 (beyond the library, towards
the south)

Feb. 4, 2007: Week 5: We'll focus on the Wertsch
book this week, with the following students focusing on the following
chapters: 1-Stacy; 2-Nanette; 3-Joe; 4-Abraham; 5-Mira; 6-Megan; 7-Tara.
Everyone should look over Gross's book on Jedwabne, so we can get a
head start on next week. Additionally, 2 scheduling notes:

2/19 is a holiday. We'll meet onWed. 2/21, at
6pm at my house, with dinner.

2/26: I am co-organizer of a talk by Steven Beller
about Jews in Austria, which starts at 4pm. If we can all start
at 1pm, maybe we can shift the class earlier, but in any case I'll
need to end early that day. And I hope you'll all attend! [note
2/8: we have room 4041 from 1-2pm]

Feb. 8, 2007: Week 6: Read all of Jan Gross's Neighbors,
as well as the introduction to Polonski/Michlic, The Neighbors Respond;
AND my short overview of "Memories of the Holocaust and WWII in
Europe" (reader nos. 7 and 8). Individual supplements (do a page
find [ctrl-f] for the full citation below, or jump down to the week
6-Poland section):

March 4, 2007: Tomorrow we will discuss Colette Waddell's Through the Eyes of a Survivor. Our guests will be the author, and Prof. Janet Walker from film studies, whose recent films Portraits of Survival feature interview footage with Nina Morecki. Our reading also includes an essay by Mark Roseman about his experience interviewing Marianne Strauss and later finding documents recounting the same events with some striking differences.

As the written assignment, please prepare questions to ask Colette, and select passages for discussion.

Also, if you have time, there is a talk relevant to our seminar at on Monday March 5, noon-1pm in HSSB 4020: Professor Claudio Fogu from the Department
of French and Italian will speak on "The Politics of Memory and the Poetics
of History in Postwar Europe."
In this talk Professor Fogu will discuss a volume of essays, The Politics of Memory in Postwar Europe, which he edited with Richard Ned Lebow and Wulf Kansteiner. Professor Fogu's talk will first discuss the methodological premises of the project, the criteria for the selection of the case
studies, and the definition of "politics of memory." He will then discuss the lessons learned by the contributors in their attempts to create a channel of communication between cultural approaches to the study of memory and scholars in the social sciences with issues such as democratization, identity, and European unification. Finally, he will discuss the comparative results emerging from the seven national case studies that review the institutionalization of memories of Nazism, fascism, and World War II in Austria, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Switzerland, and Russia/USSR, and focus in particular on the Italian case.

Last but not least, in the next few days (by Wednesday 4pm if possible), I would like you to write up a 1-2 page prospectus of what you will be writing about for your paper for this course. It can be submitted by e-mail.

March 12, 2007, 10am : I've received three precis so far, which I'm sending out now instead of waiting until the last minute. They are:

Joe on Loewen, Lies My Teacher Told Me (1994)
Stacy on Nash, Crabtree & Dunn, History on Trial (1997, 2000)
Abraham on Barton & Levstik, Teaching History for the Common Good (2004)
Megan and Tara on Ronald Evans, The Social Studies Wars (2004)

Additionally, in the course reader we have as common reading the 1991 essay by Wineburg on the disjuncture between the ways professional historians vs. students read historical texts.Image of missing pages 516-517, taken from the book publication pp. 81f. (smaller version)

If you haven't yet picked or had time to read one of the listed books, I'd suggest starting Nietzsche's 1873 essay "On the Uses and Abuses of History for Life" (see under week 1 on this website). At Claudio Fogu's talk last week, Fogu said that the group that produced that collection kept coming back to that text (in particular N's description of 'critical history') in their exploration of memory and identity. It is a short selection, and you don't have to read much of it to get the jist.

We'll be a smaller group today, since Tara, Mira and Paul won't be there. See you at 2!

7 on 12/29/06
28 on 1/3/07
34 on 1/5/07 (only me)
41 on 1/7/07 before e-mail
51 1/8, 9am, 62 at 11pm
81 on 1/11/07=7/day
141 on 1/21/07=6/day
176 on 1/25/07=7/day
244 on 2/4/07=7/day
268 on 2/8/07=6/day
293 on 2/12/07=6/day
386 on 2/26/07=7/day
420 on 3/4/07=6/day
474 on 3/12/07=7/day
574 on 4/1/07=5/day
700 on 4/16/07=8.5/day
1762 on 8/1/07=10/day
1845 on 8/13/07=7/day
3006 on 10/22/07=16.5/day
4765 on 12/31/07=25.5/day13.2/day in 2007

5385 on 1/25/08=25/day
12,218 on 10/19/08=25.5/day
20,779 on 1/4/10
27,906 on 1/1/1119.7/day in 2010
(until Jan. 1, 2011, this counter was also counting the Collective Memory and Museums Seminar break-out pages created in Jan. 2009)
30,230 on 1/3/2013=3.2/day
since Jan. 2011
30,961 on 6/24/14